National retailers have jumped the gun this holiday season with big discounts, heavy promotion and extended store hours — along with increased efforts to target online shoppers.

Mixed economic signals appear to have sparked this early barrage as retailers worry about a tough holiday season, which has one less weekend this year during the key period from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has told investors to expect weak sales. Target is hiring 20 percent fewer seasonal workers this year. An electronics price war is shaping up, with Best Buy warning that profits will suffer as Walmart and others launched “Black Friday” discounts a full week before Thanksgiving.

Yet some local stores are stocking up, because they don’t want to miss any potential customers.

Holiday shopping 2013

Adventure 16 has added to its inventory after pulling back too much last year, said John Mead, president of the local outdoor clothing and supplies retailer.

“We’ve always had great success when the stock market is up and people are feeling a little wealthier,” Mead said last week.﻿ “We consider everything we have in our stores as gifts, because there’s nothing in our store that anybody absolutely needs. It’s all for fun and going out in the outdoors.”

Geppetto’s Toys, a growing regional chain that specializes in classic toys, has boosted its inventory by 10 percent this year, said owner Brian Miller.

“I’m not looking through a crystal ball for the next six weeks or two months,” Miller said. “I’m looking at the whole past year, and it’s been a pretty strong year. When I’m seeing high single-digit growth, that’s an encouraging sign in this economy.”

Miller’s caveat – “in this economy” – almost perfectly sums up the prevailing mood this season, with optimism and a sense of relief tempered by widespread low expectations.

There’s evidence that shoppers in San Diego County are feeling more frugal than most Americans.

In a U-T San Diego/10News poll conducted this week by SurveyUSA, 37 percent of local respondents said they plan to spend less this year than last, while just 15 percent said they’d spend more.

That gap of 22 percentage points is double the 11 percent gap reported by Gallup last week in a national poll, where 26 percent said they would spend less and 15 percent said they’d spend more. The national gap was lower than in recent years, Gallup said.

Sentiment drives the hugely important level of consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the nation’s economic output and 60 percent of San Diego County’s. The retail portion (excluding autos, gasoline, food and services) makes up 20 percent of the local economy, said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University.

Many people have had a rough year, even in San Diego, which fell harder in the Great Recession than many regions but has recently bounced back in key indicators such as real estate and job growth.

“Consumer confidence still seems to be volatile and, in general, fragile,” Reaser said.

One problem: Economic winds are blowing from opposite directions.

Many consumers are feeling wealthier because they are wealthier. Stocks are back in record territory. Home values are rising sharply — up 21.5 percent in San Diego County this year.

Although job growth is weak compared to previous recoveries, employers are hiring more workers than they fire these days. There were 23,100 more local jobs in October than a year ago, the state reported last week.

Yet stress has been building for low-income families and the high numbers of long-term unemployed.

The federal government cut payments for food stamps and unemployment compensation in recent months. Spending cuts have hit federal workers and contractors, with more scheduled in January.

Although national retail sales were better than expected in October, that’s probably because people were getting a jump on the holiday season, said Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist of the National Retail Federation.

Kleinhenz is forecasting 3.9 percent sales growth over the holiday season from last year. But nearly half of that figure comes from ordinary price inflation. The rest comes from job growth, not from a surge in consumer confidence.

“You have more people employed, you’re going to have more spending,” he said.

To grab their share of such spending, retailers are forced to adapt quickly to the shifting shopping behavior of consumers.

Online sales, which have been bounding higher for years, could grow 15 percent this season, the retail federation forecasts. And gift cards remain the nation’s hottest gift, with 81 percent of shoppers expected to buy at least one this year and spend an average $163.

Between online shopping in October and gift-card spending in January, the holiday season has stretched far beyond the old, department-store driven calendar that once kicked off with Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that pushed many retailers “into the black” for the year in terms of annual profit.

“I’ve got a girlfriend I have to shop for, and I have no idea what to get her,” he said Friday.

Frankie, who says he plans to spend more this year than last, likes to hit Fry’s Electronics and Best Buy on Black Friday in search of unadvertised discounts.

Retailers are working hard to get such consumers to open their wallets sooner.

Target is opening Thursday at 8 p.m. and staying open until 11 p.m. Friday. The discount chain’s star attraction will be a 50-inch, LED television on sale for $229, said company spokesman Matias Cavallin. Other specials will start today ﻿and last two weeks.

Five years after a financial panic sparked a worldwide recession, consumers have come to expect deep discounts.

With national employment still below the level reached in 2007, the business of retail is focused on pulling customers from competitors rather than on raising prices.